In Summation

This post is probably going to be a long one, so just bear with me and thank you in advance for reading to the end.

I have been home now for about two months. The summer vacation is nearly over and my classes will be starting by the end of August. I thought it would be appropriate to do one final entry to summarize my experience abroad.

Being home and having the same job I had last summer makes this whole thing feel so surreal; almost like it didn't happen. Or more like it was one big, vivid dream. And yet there is a city in England that became so familiar to me, and people that I got to know really well. I don't know if I will ever see them or Norwich again, which is a weird feeling, but I have a place that, for five months, was home.

I won't sit here and pretend that every minute of this experience was amazing and full of adventures. Somehow it seems like that is how studying abroad ends up being regarded. I remember talking to a girl who had studied abroad at the same school. She told me that she spent most of her time in Norwich lamenting the fact that she would have to leave. I can't say the same. There were parts that were really tough. Being away from my family for so long being one. Until June, I only saw my brothers and my dad through a screen on my computer, and if the WiFi was acting up, then I wouldn't seem them at all. My classes were different and weird. At UEA, they have these papers or projects called formative assignments, which basically means that the whole thing is a formality. It won't get graded; it's just a practice for the actual final, known as the summative assignment. Students in England seemed completely okay with doing a practice paper, but it really annoyed me that it wouldn't be graded. In fact, for all three of my classes, the final grade came down to the final paper. It was do or die; sink or swim. Basically, really stressful final papers. Not every class worked this way, but all of mine did.

Here's the thing: going to a new country doesn't make you a different person. You're still you, just relocated. It's the same concept as when we imagine ourselves with more money or that perfect partner. We believe that, if we just had this one thing, our lives would be perfect. But you're still you, and it's really up to you to fix your own problems. Just like it was up to me to push myself to do well. Going in, part of me believed that I would be traveling all the time, hanging out with people I'd just met and that I would be able to be more outgoing. But that's not me. That's never been me. I spent a lot of time in my single bedroom wondering what I should be doing. And then eating Nutella and watching Netflix. And traveling really stresses me out; still does. I can now say that I've been to four countries outside of the US, but getting to each one of them was a struggle for me. A lot of things that I had to do were a real push for me to accomplish. Even small things like grocery shopping and navigating my way through Norwich. And finding my way through the bigger cities like London? Forget about it, that stuff is hard. But I did all of those things because I had to. I worked on making friends because I knew that if I alienated myself, I would be miserable.

I learned that the growth I made at UEA could also have been achieved at home. But putting myself in such a new environment did help force me into those situations. I was able to expand my comfort zone. Because of the friends I managed to make, I'm not as nervous to talk to strangers. Because of the seeming disasters we encountered while traveling, I know that being late isn't the worst thing in the world and that no situation is completely dire and unfixable. And because I traveled to another country for five months, I now know that I can. And I can say with almost complete confidence that if someone like me can go through this and come out on the other side having ultimately enjoyed myself, then anyone can.

View from my window at UEA.